LandCare, a national leader in commercial landscape management, has fundamentally transformed its talent acquisition processes through the strategic implementation of Workable, an advanced applicant tracking system (ATS). This strategic shift has yielded significant measurable improvements, including a remarkable 23% reduction in time-to-hire, a substantial increase in hiring volume across critical branch positions, and an elevated strategic profile for its talent acquisition (TA) team within the organization. The company’s journey from a manual, fragmented recruitment approach to a streamlined, data-driven system highlights the critical role of accessible technology in managing a large, distributed, and field-based workforce in the competitive commercial landscaping industry.
LandCare: A National Force in Commercial Landscape Management
With a formidable presence spanning 76 locations across 23 states, LandCare stands as one of the largest commercial landscape management companies in the United States. At its operational peak, the organization employs approximately 4,000 individuals, a workforce predominantly comprised of field-based professionals. This extensive footprint and substantial headcount underscore the immense and unique challenges inherent in managing talent acquisition for such a geographically dispersed and operationally diverse enterprise.
The company’s hiring needs are multifaceted, encompassing a wide array of roles from branch administrators and production managers to account managers, branch managers, and corporate functions such as finance, IT, HR, marketing, and operations. Additionally, the talent acquisition team handles periodic executive searches at the Vice President and Director levels. Crucially, crew-level hiring, which represents a significant volume of recruitment, is managed at the individual branch level. This decentralized approach requires a robust yet user-friendly system that can support both corporate and field-based recruitment efforts seamlessly. Leading this complex talent acquisition strategy is Alex Kline, the Director of Talent Acquisition and Employee Services, who oversees a dedicated team of six recruiters. This team is responsible for exempt-level, corporate, and executive hiring, while also serving as vital subject matter experts and advisors to branches managing their own high-volume crew-level recruiting. Their role extends to ensuring that job postings effectively reach the right candidates across diverse platforms.
The Pre-Workable Era: Navigating an Antiquated Recruitment Landscape
Prior to adopting Workable in the fall of 2023, LandCare grappled with a talent acquisition infrastructure that was, by modern standards, significantly constrained. The company was not utilizing a dedicated applicant tracking system, instead relying on a plugin within its existing UKG human resources information system (HRIS). While this plugin served as a basic processing tool, it lacked the core functionalities of a true ATS. This meant that much of LandCare’s recruitment efforts were conducted manually and outside the system, leading to considerable inefficiencies.
Alex Kline vividly recalled the limitations: “It was a very antiquated process. There was really nothing about it that allowed us to manage our recruitment effort through that system. We were managing it kind of outside and then just processing everything through it.” This manual dependency created significant bottlenecks, particularly concerning job postings. The UKG integration could only push roles to LandCare’s internal careers page. Any additional desired exposure on external platforms such as LinkedIn or Indeed necessitated separate, laborious manual posts for each individual job. As LandCare continued its trajectory of growth and the demand for rapid, high-volume hiring intensified, this inefficient and time-consuming process became unsustainable, impeding the company’s ability to attract and secure top talent effectively. The inability to centralize candidate data, track applications efficiently, or leverage automation placed a heavy burden on the TA team and delayed critical hiring decisions.
The Quest for a Modern Solution: A Deliberate and Thorough Selection Process
Recognizing the urgent need for a more robust and scalable talent acquisition solution, Alex Kline embarked on a comprehensive evaluation process. The initial search involved assessing approximately ten different platforms, demonstrating a commitment to finding the absolute best fit for LandCare’s unique operational model. This extensive field was then meticulously narrowed down, first to five contenders, then to three, and finally to two finalists. The thoroughness of this selection process underscored the strategic importance of this decision for the company’s future growth and operational efficiency.
The evaluation criteria extended beyond mere feature lists, delving into how each platform would integrate with LandCare’s existing HRIS, its scalability, and critically, its ease of use for a diverse user base, particularly the field-based hiring managers. The aim was not just to acquire an ATS but to implement a system that would be genuinely adopted and utilized across the entire organization, from corporate offices to remote branch locations.
Workable’s Winning Edge: Simplicity Meets Sophistication for a Field-Based Workforce
Ultimately, Workable emerged as the clear and compelling choice, triumphing over a strong competitor that also boasted an impressive array of features and robust reporting capabilities. While the competing finalist had elements that initially excited the recruiting team, LandCare’s distinct operational model presented a unique challenge that Workable was uniquely positioned to address. A significant portion of LandCare’s hiring managers operate in the field, frequently on job sites, in company vehicles, or otherwise away from traditional desk environments. For these critical stakeholders to genuinely engage in the hiring process, the chosen platform needed to be intuitive, accessible from anywhere, and require minimal onboarding.
Alex Kline articulated this crucial differentiator: “If we would have put the other platform in front of our hiring managers, we would have never been able to get the buy-in from them that we have now. Workable makes it so simple for them.” This emphasis on user experience, particularly for non-technical, field-based personnel, proved decisive. Workable successfully married the functional depth required for comprehensive talent acquisition management, including robust reporting capabilities, with an unparalleled user experience. This combination of powerful features and inherent simplicity was the cornerstone of LandCare’s decision, ensuring that the new ATS would not only meet the needs of the TA specialists but also foster widespread adoption across the entire organization.
Strategic Implementation: A Phased Approach to Seamless Integration
The implementation of Workable was meticulously planned and executed, spearheaded by Alex Kline himself, who took on the role of project manager for the rollout. Working in close collaboration with Workable’s dedicated implementation partner, Kashaw, LandCare adopted a strategic phased approach rather than attempting a simultaneous, all-encompassing launch. This deliberate methodology allowed for focused efforts and iterative improvements.
Key components of the implementation were delegated strategically across different teams. The internal TA team was tasked with building out comprehensive candidate communication templates, ensuring consistency and professionalism in all interactions. Concurrently, the HR team played a vital role in aligning the organizational structure within Workable with the company’s existing HRIS. This critical step ensured seamless data flow and a logical candidate journey across both systems, minimizing manual data entry and potential discrepancies. Alex Kline highlighted the synergistic nature of this partnership: “The relationship was very symbiotic. We’d bring things to their attention in the afternoon and come back the next morning to viable solutions.” This collaborative and responsive approach significantly accelerated the implementation process.
The phased rollout proved highly effective. Within a remarkably swift six weeks, the entire TA team was fully operational on Workable. Following a two-week period of internal use, dedicated to fine-tuning workflows, identifying and documenting edge cases, and solidifying best practices, the platform was officially launched to the broader business. This meticulous preparation paid off, as full company adoption was achieved within a mere eight weeks of the initial implementation. This rapid and successful integration across a large, distributed organization is a testament to both Workable’s intuitive design and LandCare’s strategic implementation leadership.
Transformative Outcomes: Quantifiable Gains in Hiring Efficiency and Volume
The impact of Workable’s implementation, which commenced in the fall of 2023, was immediate and has demonstrated compounding benefits year over year. The data clearly illustrates a significant positive shift in LandCare’s hiring metrics.
Focusing on four core branch-level positions, the contrast between the pre-Workable era and the post-implementation period is striking. In 2023, the last full year operating on the UKG plugin system, LandCare hired 122 individuals for these positions. Following Workable’s integration, this number saw a healthy increase to 136 hires in 2024. The upward trend continued into 2025, reaching 138 hires. This sustained growth in hiring volume indicates Workable’s ability to scale with LandCare’s expansion needs and effectively process a higher volume of applications and candidates.
Equally impressive is the improvement in efficiency. LandCare’s average time to hire experienced a significant reduction, decreasing by 23% from 2024 to 2025. This metric is crucial in competitive talent markets, as faster hiring cycles not only reduce the risk of losing top candidates to competitors but also minimize the operational impact of vacant positions. The ability to hire more people, and to do so substantially faster, while crucially maintaining the quality of candidates reaching hiring managers, represents a major operational victory for LandCare.
Furthermore, the implementation of Workable has contributed to an improvement in employee turnover rates. While Alex Kline wisely refrains from attributing this complex metric to a single factor, he acknowledges that the enhanced ability to move faster through the recruitment process, reach a wider pool of candidates, and provide hiring managers with genuine visibility into their own pipelines has collectively contributed to better hire quality and stronger overall retention outcomes. This suggests a virtuous cycle where efficient recruitment leads to better hires, which in turn leads to greater employee satisfaction and longevity within the company.
Elevating Talent Acquisition’s Strategic Role: Visibility and Credibility
One of the more profound and perhaps unexpected outcomes of Workable’s implementation has been the dramatic increase in clarity and understanding across the business regarding the critical functions of the talent acquisition team. By granting hiring managers direct access to the platform and enabling them to view their own job pipelines, Workable has effectively demystified the recruitment process. This transparency has allowed managers to witness firsthand the considerable effort involved in every single hire.
A compelling anecdote illustrates this point: when LandCare’s marketing director posted a graphic designer role, she received an astonishing 2,000 applications within a single month. This experience fundamentally altered her perception of the TA team’s work. Alex Kline elaborated on the impact: “For her to understand that yes, you may only be seeing five candidates you like to talk to, but this is the level of effort that went into it. Out of 400 candidates, we disqualified 350, scheduled calls with 50, only 30 showed up, we liked 15 of those, 10 made it through the behavioral assessment, and those are your top five. It really gave the TA team a lot of street credit in the business.”
This newfound visibility and appreciation have significantly strengthened the relationship between the TA team and the various departments they serve. It has also unequivocally elevated the function’s credibility with senior leadership, positioning talent acquisition as a strategic partner rather than a purely administrative function. The ability to quantitatively demonstrate the value and complexity of their work has provided the TA team with a much-deserved "seat at the table" in broader business discussions.
Beyond the Numbers: Enhancing Candidate and User Experience
Beyond the core metrics of volume and speed, Workable has introduced several features that have profoundly improved both the candidate experience and the day-to-day operations of LandCare’s hiring managers.
One Click, 15 Job Boards: The operational shift in job posting alone represents a monumental leap forward. Where the previous UKG plugin limited distribution to LandCare’s careers page and demanded arduous manual posts for every other platform, Workable now automates distribution to over 15 leading job boards with a single click. While LinkedIn and Indeed remain primary candidate sources, this broader, instantaneous distribution carries significant brand awareness benefits. As Alex Kline noted, “Just having your brand out there in all the different areas ultimately drives applicants to you in other ways as well.” This wider reach not only increases application volume but also subtly strengthens LandCare’s employer brand across the digital landscape.
The Mobile App: Built for the Field: For an organization like LandCare, where a significant portion of its hiring managers are consistently in the field—on job sites, in trucks, and away from traditional office setups—the Workable mobile app has become an indispensable tool. In fact, LandCare’s field-based hiring managers use the mobile app almost exclusively. The workflow is streamlined: when a candidate progresses to a new stage, the hiring manager receives an immediate email notification on their phone. From there, they can directly click into Workable, review the candidate’s resume, and provide instant approval or rejection. This eliminates the need for a laptop or any delay in waiting to return to a desk, ensuring that critical hiring decisions are made promptly, regardless of location. Alex Kline himself utilizes the mobile app daily, frequently approving offer letters on the go. He emphasizes, “That is probably one of the biggest highlights of the system. Our hiring managers – that’s all they use.” This mobile-first functionality is a testament to Workable’s understanding of modern, distributed workforces.
Self-Scheduling and Custom Questions: The self-scheduling links feature has garnered consistent praise, with positive feedback directly from candidates. The ability to receive a stage-advancement email and immediately book a Teams interview without the tedious back-and-forth of traditional scheduling has significantly enhanced the candidate experience, projecting an image of efficiency and professionalism. Furthermore, Workable’s custom application questions add a crucial layer of precision, particularly valuable at LandCare’s scale. These questions are leveraged for practical purposes, such as gathering accurate sourcing attribution data from LinkedIn messaging campaigns or allowing intern candidates to specify their preferred geographic region. Such capabilities help route and prioritize candidates effectively, eliminating manual steps and ensuring that the right candidates are connected with the right opportunities.
Data-Driven Insights: Reporting and Advanced Analytics
LandCare leverages Workable’s robust built-in reporting features for immediate operational insights, monitoring key metrics such as hiring velocity, time to hire, and other core performance indicators that provide an instant pulse on recruiting performance. This native reporting capability offers quick, actionable data for daily management.
However, recognizing the need for deeper, more customized analysis, LandCare also integrates Workable’s raw data directly into its Power BI environment. This allows the company to run highly custom reports through its own data warehouse, enabling sophisticated trend analysis, predictive modeling, and strategic insights that go beyond standard dashboards. Alex Kline highlighted this flexibility: “It’s easy to communicate with the internal mainframe of Workable. We’re able to pull that data into Power BI and run very custom reports.” This dual approach—utilizing Workable’s native reporting for day-to-day visibility while integrating with a more advanced analytics platform—exemplifies the adaptability and data versatility that made Workable the ideal fit for LandCare’s evolving analytical needs. It empowers the TA team to not only track performance but also to proactively identify areas for improvement and demonstrate strategic value to the business.
A Partnership for Future Growth: LandCare’s Unqualified Endorsement
When asked if LandCare would recommend Workable, the response is unequivocally positive. For field-based organizations like LandCare, which manage complex, distributed hiring across dozens of locations, the ability to genuinely engage hiring managers in the recruitment process without requiring extensive training is a significant competitive advantage. This ease of use is paramount in industries where time is at a premium and technological adoption can be a hurdle.
LandCare’s journey illustrates a remarkable transformation: from a manual, limited system to a nationally coordinated recruiting function that can demonstrate its impact with concrete data, move candidates through the pipeline faster, and reach a vast talent pool across over 15 platforms with a single, efficient action. The quantitative results speak volumes: a 23% faster time to hire, 138 hires across four core branch positions in a single year, and a talent acquisition team that has earned unparalleled credibility with leadership because the platform made their complex and vital work transparent and measurable. This partnership with Workable has not only optimized LandCare’s immediate hiring needs but has also strategically positioned the company for sustained growth and talent acquisition excellence in the years to come, setting a benchmark for efficiency and effectiveness in the commercial landscape management industry.
